EA-18G Growlers Appear In The Philippines As China Shadows US Carrier Group Nearby

China is keeping a very close eye on the US and its allies in the Pacific.

The Pentagon’s premier electronic attack and suppression of enemy air defenses platform has arrived in the Philippines. Four EA-18G Growlers and 120 personnel from VAQ-138, the Yellow Jackets, have been sent to Clark Air Base for bilateral training with the Philippines' newest fighter, the Korean-built FA-50 Golden Eagle. Yet this is just one facet of the Yellow Jacket’s strategic deployment.

This detachment is part of a new initiative that is seeing US forces being drawn back to the same installations in the Philippines that they had vacated years ago. It is meant to increase interoperability between the US and local military forces, but above all else this inter-governmental agreement exists due to the mutually beneficial need to check Chin’s extra-territorial ambitions.

The first of these aerial deployments happened just a month and a half ago when five A-10C Warthogs and a trio of HH-60G Pave Hawk combat search and rescue helicopters deployed to the base. The deployment saw the A-10s flying “freedom of navigation” flights around China’s man-made islands.

USN

The Growlers now being deployed to the area represent a very different and arguably much more pointed threat to China’s interests in the region than the A-10s did. These jets can jam and electronically attack China’s ship and island-based radar systems and communications nodes, drastically lowering Beijing’s situational awareness and overall tactical picture of what is happening in the region. As a result, this leaves their interests more vulnerable to surprise kinetic attacks.

Having this type of capability deployed to the Philippines will definitely be seen as an escalation by the Chinese. Overall it is also is a clear indicator that the Obama Administration is willing to deploy some of the Pentagon’s most effective combat aircraft back to the region in an attempt to counter China’s growing military presence nearby.

DoD

Meanwhile, the USS John C. Stennis had been tailed by Chinese ships from nearly the moment she entered the South China Sea according to the Navy Times, with Rear Admiral Marcus Hitchcock, the flag officer in charge of the Stennis Strike Group, stating:

“We did see PLAN ships quite routinely throughout the South China Sea. In fact, we were in constant visual contact with at least one PLAN ship at any one time, 24/7.”

The Stennis and her flotilla have since met up with Japanese and Indian naval vessels to execute a large-scale training exercise in the Philippine Sea, dubbed “Malabar 2016.” The location of the drills, and the fact that India and Japan, both who have territorial disputes with China, are joining the US in the exercise, is clearly news that China is unhappy to hear.

Check out the Stennis operating in some nasty weather during Malabar 2016:

A Chinese intelligence ship has continued to follow the Stennis during these drills, coming within just a handful of miles from the carrier. Its job is likely to soak up electronic and communications intelligence from the trio of ever-tight knit naval players.

China’s increasingly close watch on the US Navy also comes as the massive Rim of The Pacific (RIMPAC) naval wargames is about to kick off. The biannual multi-national exercise is the largest of its kind, and this iteration will include no less than 27 nations, including China.

China’s flotilla for RIMPAC 2016 consists of a destroyer, frigate, submarine rescue ship, hospital ship and a supply ship. This group will rendezvous with the American Arleigh Burke class destroyers Stockdale and William P. Lawrence on Saturday. Together they will make up one of four group sails that will head to Pearl Harbor where the drills are primarily based out of.